Though not quite the distance I'm used to, I was excited to take a break from the ultrarunning and see what kind of speed my legs had. The Summer Solstice is trail race held at Kittatinny State Park in Andover NJ, with all proceeds benefit the Sussex County Women's Forum (for more infomation, click here). The organization works closely alongside my trail running group, the Salt Shakers . At the starting line, we took a moment of silence to remember local running legend Andy Latincsics, who recently passed away. I competed against Andy numerous times in local races and he beat me almost every time. The race director decided that we would forgo the traditional "GO" to commence the race and instead say "ANDY", certainly a fitting tribute. Moments later, "ANDY" was yelled and we were on our way.
I was the first one into the woods' bottleneck 50 meters from the start line. As the front group zipped through the trail and onto the railbed, I discerned a few familiar faces. Justin Scheid made himself apparent by quickly taking the lead and pushing our pace down to around 5:00-5:20 per mile. I recognized last year's winner, Hunter Jackman follow closely behind him. Another young runner (I later found out was named Blake Digiaimo) and I settled in for 3rd and 4th, respectively, as we merged off the railbed to the first section of singletrack. Before long, Justin and Hunter were no longer in sight, as Blake and I scurried up the first hill nearing the 1-mile mark. I hit one mile on my GPS in 6:42 and I was ecstatic, because I knew this would be one of the tougher sections of the course. After a steep descent we meandered through the twisting singletrack, unable to pick up much speed. I was sitting relatively comfortably in 4th at this point, with Blake still only a few strides ahead. We emerged back onto the railbed to begin the ~2 mile out and back section, and I quickly surged ahead of Blake. We were both moving well and our pace dropped down to around a 5:45/mile. I hit my 2nd mile split in 7:01, surprisingly slow considering a decent chunk of it was on the railbed. I tried to ignore it, but I picked up the pace in frustration, trying to make some time back up.
When I reached the turnaround, I saw that I had built a decent 10 second lead or so on Blake. I was still far behind Justin but I could see Hunter only about 30 seconds ahead. I was feeling strong and decided to work on slowly catching him. I was beginning to slow as I clocked my 3rd mile split in 6:07. I wasn't displeased, but I knew with more speed training I could have run that in 5:40 or faster. I entered the final, and hardest, section of the run alone. The trail loops back so you can see how close the next runners are, which confirmed that as long as I ran the tower hill well, I'd cross the line in 3rd. I ran the flat singletrack section controlled before coasting up the hills. I did not feel like I was moving well up the hills, but was surprised at my 4th mile split of 7:13, considering it was almost entirely on singletrack. I bolted up the final two ascents without seeing anyone ahead or behind me, and began making my way down to the finish. When I reached the fire road I was able to open my stride and dropped my pace down to about 5:45/mile. I was still roughly a quarter-mile away when I hit my 5th mile split of 7:24. Realizing I would be well under my time from last year, I began to push hard and sprinted across the finish line with a few 5k runners.
I finished the race in 35:45, good enough for 3rd place, and a 1:28 faster than last year. I felt great overall despite having raced a 70.5-mile ultra less than two weeks prior. Justin ended up winning the race in 32:05, with Hunter coming in 2nd in 35:02. Blake finished 4th in 36:41 and fellow Salt Shaker John Montgomery rounded out the top 5 in 37:47. Thanks to all the volunteers and race organizers for putting on a fantastic event, I'm sure I'll be back next year.
Cheers!
https://www.strava.com/activities/622550094
http://www.racingnj.com/files/2016_summer_solstice_overall_finish.htm
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